Page 50 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

See?We don’t need a man, I’d said.

You’re right,Annika had said.We neededtenmen for this.

“When are you leaving?”

She bit her lip and gave me a guilty look. “Wednesday. I know it’s kind of sudden but I only just?—”

“Wednesday?” I screeched. “You’re leaving in four days?”

She pulled an envelope out of her backpack and tossed it into my lap.

I slid the check out and stared at the amount. Nine hundred dollars. “What’s this for?”

“Two months rent in advance.”

“You already paid this month’s rent. I’m not taking your money.” I jammed the check back in the envelope and tossed it in her lap. “You’ll need it for Paris.”

“Take it. And make sure you cash it,” she said, throwing it back at me. “I feel bad enough about leaving you high and dry. So if you don’t cash this check, I’ll feel even guiltier. It will hold you over until you find a new roommate.”

A new roommate.

I scratched the side of my neck. It was hot and itchy with welts forming. Just the thought of having to find a new roommate made me break out in hives.

“Fine. I’ll cash the check,” I said. “But we’re going out tonight and I’m buying.”

“Our last hurrah.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

We wentto Max Fish on Ludlow.

The lights were too bright, more suited to an interrogation room than a bar, but the drinks were cheap, Sonic Youth was playing on the jukebox, and the subversive-art-covered walls spoke to me.

“Are we okay now?” I asked when the tattooed bartender served our beers and tequila shots.

She downed her shot and chased it with beer before nodding. “We’re good.” I gave her a skeptical look. “We’regood,” she repeated, crossing her heart. “I swear.”

I was relieved but couldn’t help but feel cheated.

Just when we’d made up, she was leaving.

“Just to prove how much I love you, I’m bequeathing you my VCR and workout tapes.” She wagged her finger at me. “Make sure you use them. You don’t want to get all flabby. Work those buns and abs. You can’t depend on good genes and a fast metabolism forever. As you get older, everything heads south.”

Great. Not only was I losing my best friend, but my body was slowly decaying.

Those workout tapes were pure torture. I only did them under duress. So far, I’d yet to acquire bunsorabs of steel.

“So what’s going on with you and Gabriel?” Annika asked after our second…third?...tequila shot.

Alcohol. The great leveler. The question didn’t even sound loaded anymore. We might as well have been discussing the bartender or the pizza delivery guy.

“Nothing,” I said, peeling the label off my beer bottle.

“Why not?”

“It just…it got off on the wrong foot. And you know I don’t date musicians,” I said. “Besides, there’s plenty of other guys out there…”

My gaze drifted to the end of the bar where a guy with long, dark hair and a goatee in a leather vest was sitting under the three-foot nail sticking out of the wall. When he noticed me watching, he gave me a cocky smirk.